Consultation on the Impact of Intellectual Property Regimes on the Enjoyment of Right to Science and Culture
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Ms. Farida Shaheed Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Palais des Nations CH-1211 Geneva 10 Switzerland [email protected] 15 September 2014 Dear Ms Farida Shaheed, Consultation on the impact of intellectual property regimes on the enjoyment of right to science and culture The IPA is the international federation of national publishers associations, representing all aspects of book and journal publishing from around the world. Our 60 members represent book and journal publishers (paper and digital) from over 50 countries. Established in 1896, IPA‟s mission is to promote and protect publishing and to raise awareness for publishing as a force for economic, cultural and political development. IPA is an industry association with a human rights mandate. Around the world, IPA actively fights against censorship and promotes copyright, literacy and freedom to publish. We are an active member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) and have a long track record of collaboration with International PEN, Amnesty International, the International Federation of Journalists and many others. Many of our member publishers associations and their publishers are passionate about protecting human rights and active in promoting them. We would like to thank you for the opportunity to present our perspective on the impact of intellectual property regimes on the enjoyment of right to science and culture. It is our view that human rights and intellectual property rights are not only compatible, but also mutually supportive and interdependent. Copyright in particular, is a success story. It has proven to be a powerful tool to strengthen science and culture, improve participation in them, and provide a legal framework that confers such rights and enables policies to promote them. This is particularly true in the online environment, where copyright laws enable science and culture to prosper, and are giving scientists, creators and publishers new economic ways of exercising their profession, creating the diversity of content and services that a rapidly growing majority of the world‟s population is able to participate in. Copyright creates a marketplace that 2 3, avenue de F r a n c e • C H – 1202 G e n e v a Tel: +41 22 7 0 4 1 8 2 0 • Fax: +41 22 7 0 4 1 8 2 1 [email protected] International Publishers Association empowers citizens, and reduces the need for government interference with culture and science, a welcome state of affairs, in particular from the human rights perspective. Our submission is attached. It is limited to copyright as the fundamental legal basis for the human rights that creators and publishers exercise in their professions. We look forward to participating in the on-going debate on this issue and would be happy to present our views in any future publications, conferences or debates. Yours sincerely, Jens Bammel Secretary General www.internationalpublishers.org 2 International Publishers Association The Impact of Copyright on the Enjoyment of Right to Science and Culture 1. Introduction: Copyright and the human rights of creators, scientists and publishers The fundamental dilemma that this consultation is concerned with is how states ought to deal with different human rights that protect different types of individual freedoms. It is a question, principally, of how to reconcile the human right to “benefit from the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author1” with the right to “take part in cultural life” and the right to “enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications”. The fact that these rights are mentioned in the same article of an international covenant illustrates how deeply interwoven they are and how artificial any hierarchies would be if applied here. IPA does not support abstract notions of hierarchies between different human rights at hand. None of the rights being discussed could exist without the others and the more that public policy incentivises creation, without interfering with the other rights, the more cultural and scientific output there would be to enjoy. For publishers, copyright is the main intellectual property right. It enables them to collaborate with scientists, writers, musicians and other cultural stakeholders so they can all, jointly, benefit from the shared skills, creativity, and resources invested in creating and publishing scholarly, literary and artistic works. Copyright (understood as encompassing both economic and moral rights) is a concretisation of the human rights of creators: their freedom of to create science, their freedom of expression. It also underpins publishers‟ freedom to publish — a term which subsumes a number of individual human rights including freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom to exercise a profession, the holding of property rights etc. Through copyright and through licensing, authors and publishers exercise their right to determine how they wish to impart information, and how they wish their works to be reproduced, translated, adapted, distributed or made available — each of which are essential aspects of their freedom of expression. The right to be recognised as the author of a text and to lay claim on certain discoveries or ideas are equally important aspects of these rights. 2. Copyright as a tool to promote human rights Copyright creates a marketplace for literary and artistic works. Some criticise that such scarcity can create an obstacle to the exercise of certain human rights because it discriminates between those who can and cannot afford to pay. Similar arguments, however, have long been discarded for other essential needs, where commercial providers have actually enhanced human rights. For example, the enterprises that produce food, provide electricity or enable Internet connectivity operate in commercial markets. For consumers too poor to participate in these markets, governments must step in and support access. Two clear, contemporary examples in the copyright field are public authorities complementing the commercial book trade by providing universal access through state-owned libraries, and publishers themselves providing heavily subsidised special access to scholarly journals in least developed countries. Historically, copyright has proven to be a remarkably successful incentive to promote culture and science globally and across economic, social and class divides. It has created complex cultural industries where previously there were none. And it has enabled creators and publishers to invest their livelihoods in the creation and publication of works. The shift from patronage and government grants to reader-pay-models from the 16th century on has empowered readers and democratised publishing. The vast majority of people, too poor to be patrons of writers or publishers have been able to support them by becoming customers. This 1 See Article 15.1. (c), International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), adopted 16 December 1966 www.internationalpublishers.org 3 International Publishers Association shift provided dissenters and innovators with economic independence and unprecedented freedom. It has led to a rich diversity of publications covering all political, cultural and scientific perspectives. It has driven innovation and created new genres and types of publications as the needs of consumers evolved. Publishing output has become increasingly abundant and affordable. It is no accident that these developments coincided with the Enlightenment and the embrace of the scientific method in the West. Where copyright has taken root, it empowers small- and medium-sized businesses and empowers local communities. With their knowledge of local needs and conditions these businesses have been able to widen access and improve distribution of cultural benefits and consumer goods in distant or difficult-to-reach markets in developing countries. Copyright has proven to be an ideal tool to foster more investment in micro-businesses and access initiatives that yield employment opportunities, empowerment and more freedom and entrepreneurship at the local level. 3. Copyright and the Internet The Internet has created new ways of communication, information sharing, education and expression. Never before has so much information been available to so many at such low costs. The adoption of new technologies and behaviours is reaching developing and least developed countries fast. Because so much content is freely available on the Internet, some commentators assume that copyright is not required in this space, or that it is an obstacle to the proliferation and sharing of works, or that it inherently hinders access. In fact, copyright is a powerful tool for choice. Many of the corporations that provide content seemingly “for free” rely heavily on copyright to support their business models. For example, services that provide news, maps, social discussion, content storage or file sharing would not be possible without copyright protection that allows these businesses to regulate the use of their content. Copyright does not prevent individuals or governments from placing their content in the public domain for free or offering it under very generous licensing terms. Creative Commons and many other initiatives promoting wide dissemination of information actually use copyright law to facilitate access. Advertising-based